By Brian Zanzonico
McElderry, pastor of St. Andrew's Lutheran Church in West Hempstead and president of the Franklin Square Library Board of Trustees, had just settled in front of his computer and caught the end of the Minnesota Twins pregame show on Major League Baseball's Web site Aug. 1 when the announcers said the Twins-Kansas City Royals game would be played at Minnesota's Metrodome despite the tragedy.
"I thought, 'What tragedy?' Then I turned on the TV and saw it," McElderry said last week. "How could this happen?"
The Interstate 35W bridge, a 40-year-old crossing over the Mississippi River that connected the Minneapolis neighborhoods of Downtown East and Marcy-Holmes, was in pieces, collapsed into the water below. Large sections of concrete jutted out of the dark water. Cars were on fire. As of press time, seven people were reported dead. McElderry's brother, Curt, is a St. Paul resident and his wife Amy's sister, Elaine Tecklenberg, lives in Minneapolis.
"So far, everyone's alright," McElderry said in an interview the day after the tragedy. "We weren't able to get through at all because the phones are jammed, but I know those two are O.K."
McElderry said the Interstate 35W bridge is the second major crossing between the Twin Cities, next to Interstate 9. He said its is within walking distance from the Metrodome, where the Twins play.
"There were probably people on that bridge headed to the game," he said. "It's as major a bridge as anything we have here in New York."
The oldest of three sons born in Fairbanks, Alaska to Charlene and McElderry and Frederick McElderry, a member of the United States Air Force, McElderry was raised in St. Paul. He graduated from Concordia College with a dual major in classical languages and German. He followed a college girlfriend to the east coast in the late 1970s, and though it didn't work out, he remained in Philadelphia and graduated from the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1980. He interned at a church in Syosset, where he met future wife, Amy Tecklenberg, and they married in late 1980.
After five years of ministry at Grace Lutheran Church in Greenwood Lake, New York McElderry was called to St. Andrew's in 1986, where he has been ever since.
After moving to Franklin Square, McElderry successfully ran for the Franklin Square Library Board in 1987 and has served ever since, including president several times, since the board rotates its presidents.
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